Ours
by Mezclau
Summary: "'And…I want to have a baby with you, Richard Castle.' She whispers the last part as he leans down to kiss her again." Set post-marriage, and in third-person, despite the title.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Disclaimer: They're not mine. **

"You want a baby."

The words float across the darkened kitchen, where she sits, set against the wall, clutching a half-empty glass of water in her hands, which rested on her knees in the shadows of the moonlight streaming in through the window.

"I…" She pauses. "I mean—what?"

"Tonight," he begins, softly but steadily. "I was watching, Katie."

He's always watching. At least she can count on that. Even if the rest of her world is shifting on its axis, the blissful ease of yesterday slipping away, now just out of reach.

She starts to question him, but he continues, approaching her as he does. "Liam? Jonathan? Your eyes were following them all night."

He paused, having slowly slid down the side of the counter to press the side of his body against hers, inching his hand across to link fingers with her, coaxing some of her anxieties out as he plays with her hand.

"And Lanie's, too…she—she is, right?"

Kate smiles, allowing her eyes to shift upward as she does. Glancing toward him, she tilts her head to the side as she questions him affectionately, affirming his partially-unspoken question.

"You know. How do you always know?"

Richard Castle, to Kate's wonder, had an uncanny gift for knowing a woman was pregnant. They'd be out in public, with total strangers, or on a case, or with friends, and he'd pull her to the side, or even wait till the cab ride home. "She's pregnant," he'd whisper. Much to Kate's chagrin, he'd always be right. She had stopped putting money down after the fourth time.

And yes, Lanie was pregnant—her friend had confided it to her under terms of utter secrecy the week before. It was still a week or so before they were supposed to tell anyone, but Lanie just couldn't keep it quiet. Kate didn't like keeping things from Castle—part of the 'no secrets' agreement they had made, way back when—but she figured this was a little different. Plus, Lanie called her two nights ago and said the baby was healthy, and that they were planning on telling everyone at dinner next Friday.

"Yeah," she responded, letting out a sigh as she did. "Sorry for not telling you—it, you're not supposed to tell anyone until a certain point, I guess, and she—they're planning on telling us this week and…"

"Kate," he stops her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Relax. I get it." She waits, knows he has more to say. Smiling, and looking upwards, he adds, "They're going to be such great…" He halts, seeking her eyes in an afterthought. "Wait, they—they are happy about it, right?"

"Them? Of course. What did you think?"

"Well, yeah. But I know sometimes you think they'll be, and…they're not."

They wait a moment in silence.

He's about to say something, break the tension, because it had dissipated a bit there, talking about their friends, but he could feel the rest of it seeping back in. And he knows sometimes she needs this, circling a topic or even avoiding it completely, going off on tangents for awhile, before she can address it head on.

So he's about to comment on something else—how Espo must be over the moon, how he's so happy for them, how he loves seeing their friends become families (tonight had been Ryan and Jenny's sixth anniversary, so they had the crew from the twelfth and a few others over for dinner, and their sons were—god, really old already, Liam would be five in September, and Jonathan was two a few weeks ago, and they were the group's first kids, and…), but she beat him to it.

"Was that how it was for you…you and Meredith?" she asks, quiet in the weight hidden behind her question.

They had discussed this before, hashed out most of the details, really, in his past marriages. She wanted reassurance that their marriage wouldn't fail like his first two, and to tell the truth, he did as well. But he'd tell it again. For her.

He lets out a breath.

"We were young," he states. "I'll never regret Alexis,"

"Of course," she murmurs.

"But the timing could have probably been better. And if—if I could do it all over, I would pick…pick a better person to become a parent with."

"Someone who wouldn't abandon her kid," he adds, scoffing, the pent-up anger he would always harbor toward his first wife rising to the surface for a moment.

Looking down again, she responds. "Did…did you ever consider having more than—more than just Lex?"

They had discussed this before too, but he knew she needed some repetition, some rehashing tonight.

He looks at her, draws her in closer, pushing her hair off of her forehead again and brushing through her hair with his hand. He knows her—really does, now, and loves her even more for it. And as a result of that, he knows how difficult this is for her.

"With Meredith it became quite clear shortly after the birth that she was done. Gina…well that only lasted so long, and it was a marriage of convenience, really. I think—I think deep down we both knew it wouldn't last forever, even at the altar," he puts out, somewhere between a whisper and a real statement.

The decisions to marry his past two wives had been some of his worst, and he would probably always bear some regrets over both relationships. But Kate cuts him off, prevents him from falling too far down the hole of regret and disappointment he teetered on in terms of his romantic endeavors with Meredith and Gina. As she always did.

"And…and, now?" she breathes, and he can feel the tension and nervousness quivering inside her. He pulls her over, slides down a few inches to the corner formed by two lower cabinets. The glass of water forgotten on the floor beside them, she shifts, fully on his lap now, as he leans in to her shoulder.

"Kate, of _course_ now. You're it…you're everything, you know that."

"I…" she starts, but he cuts her off.

"Katherine Castle Beckett, I am madly in love with you, and plan on being so for the rest of my life. I have an amazing, beautiful, smart, practically perfect daughter, who looks up to you as the closest thing to a mother figure she's probably ever had. I loved raising Alexis, I wouldn't give up that experience for the world. But to be able to do it all again? And with the most beautiful, intelligent, extraordinary wife—woman—in the world?" he adds, smiling into her.

He pauses.

"Of course I want to have babies with you," he adds, more quietly this time. "You know that. You would be an extraordinary mother."

She looks down, then further away, and now he gets it. This wasn't really about if he wanted to have kids, or if he wanted to have them with her. She knew the answers to all of those questions. These insecurities were about herself, about becoming a mother when she hadn't had one in so many years.

"We've talked about it before," she says, in that same half-whisper, half-speaking voice he used earlier.

He agrees, and waits—she has more to say.

"I don't know, Rick…I mean, yes, I agree, and…yeah, but there's so much to worry about, and what if I screwed it up, and there's so many kids out there that are so messed up by their parents, and there's just so much, and…"

She'd started slow, but was speaking faster and faster, still going in circles. So he cuts her off.

"Kate. Do you want kids? Do you want a baby?"

She waits before answering, stares across the room and chews on her bottom lip for a minute. But she turns and meets his eyes, playing with his hand, which she's tangled up between both of hers.

"Yes." She confides, in a whisper.

He's happy, his heart leaps, but he keeps a straight face. She has more qualms about this issue, and he waits to hear them out.

"But I don't know…I have a dangerous job, and we both know that I could—could not come home one day. You know that, and when you tag along you're in danger too."

He hadn't been coming along as much anymore; Black Pawn had offered him the position as head of their Author Mentoring program last year, and after multiple extended discussions they decided together that he should take on the position for a few years, and could always visit the precinct or return if he decided to give up the job.

"And Castle—," she looks down again, then at the collar of his worn-out shirt as she let her fears out.

"Cas, I don't want to leave our kid…alone. I just don't want what happened to—to my mom, to happen to me, and those years were—they were bad for me, really bad. And I don't think…I don't think I could ever forgive myself if our kid had to go through the same thing."

As she waited for him to respond, looked back up and watched him formulate his words, the phrase she'd used—used twice, she realized—hit her full force for the first time. 'Our kid.' Her and Rick's. And, well…she liked how it sounded. She really did. His words brought her out of her thoughts though, cut her off, allowing her to focus again on their conversation.

"That's not going to happen." She looked at him doubtfully. "Well, no," he acquiesces. "I'm wrong, it could happen." He took a deep breath. "It could, but that doesn't mean it will. And we can't live like this, can't prevent ourselves from that happiness, those chances, in fear of the pain that _could_ come later."

"But it's not our pain, Rick. Or—or not mine. It's our kids' pain. And, just…"

He nodded. "Yeah," he said, smoothing her hair again. "Yeah, it is. But you—we—we have to believe it won't happen, that they'll never have to feel that pain. Or hope. And look, everyone has that same fear—Jenny & Ry, Espo and Lain…Montgomery had kids. But the chance of that happening is so small, Kate, so small. We have to believe that, you know that."

She nods, and they wait like that for a few moments, listening to the nighttime sounds of the loft surrounding them.

He asks what she's thinking after awhile, figures one of them had to break the silence.

She bites her lip again, waits another moment. But then she's changing, a smile growing on her face even as she tries to contain it. "Our baby," she whispers, playing with the ribbed collar of his shirt as she continues to fight the grin.

"Our baby," he affirms, matching her smile as he switches their position, leaning down and steadying her head for a kiss.

"Ours…" she lets out after a minute, pausing the kiss. And then he realizes how late it is, realizes she'll probably want to go for a run in the morning and in order to do that they'll have to go to sleep first.

So he backs away from her, tugging her hands till she's standing with him. He tells her he loves her, and he always will, as she leads him back to the bedroom.

Watching as she stripped off the NYPD hoodie she'd been wearing in the kitchen and tucked herself into him, Rick smiled to himself. Their kid. Theirs.

* * *

**Thoughts? Haven't yet decided whether this'll be a oneshot or a longer piece. Also, I had a difficult time on the title, and couldn't choose between 'Theirs' and 'Ours'...what do you think? **


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

**Disclaimer: Well, I'd love to have been on set for the 5x01 filming today, but I can't say I was. **

He awakes to the sound of retching from the bathroom, same as the last few mornings. Rolling over, Castle realizes the other side of the bed is cool—she's been gone for awhile.

He returns to his back, running a hand over his face as he checks the time. 4:03. It's early. The sounds of his wife in the bathroom remind him again of why he's woken up, and he flips the covers back, heads toward the bathroom.

He finds her at the sink, splashing cool water on her face in a pair of gym shorts and one of his tshirts, her hair coming out of a hastily done bun. He approaches her, taking the towel to pat her face dry himself.

"How many times?" he asks, reaching out for her.

"Lost count," she sighs, visibly weakened.

"Sweetheart…" he lets out, kissing the top of her head as she steps into his embrace. She asks if they can sit, and he agrees. They stay there for a moment, his arm around her as they settle down.

Later, after another round, she leans back, rests her head in his lap as she lets the fatigue overtake her body. He sits with her, as always, stroking his hand over her forehead and her hair.

"Still the chicken?" he asks, the first words they've spoken in awhile.

She grunts, the task of responding rendered almost too difficult.

* * *

"Rick?" she calls, a short while later. When it looked like she'd run out of stomach contents, he had—against her admittedly feeble protests—gone to call her in sick from the precinct and to start the coffee.

What Castle didn't know was that while he was in the kitchen, she had summoned the energy to sneak over to the cabinet—quietly, so he wouldn't hear her and return—to get the bag from the pharmacy she'd stored in there the day before, when she'd felt well enough to go out for a few hours.

Kate wasn't normally an instructions girl, preferred to figure it out for herself. But this time struck her as different. So she carefully read the directions on each test, then completed each one. Three times. Then a fourth, after those developed.

She paced the room with her arms crossed, trying to determine exactly what she was feeling. Finding herself at the edge of the tub, where she'd placed the developed tests and the pharmacy bag, she looked back down into the plastic. The fifth, sixth, and seventh tests lay in their boxes, the stark white of the bag contrasting the bright colors of their packaging. Biting her lip, she made her decision.

"Hey Castle?" she tried again, assuming he'd gotten caught up in something and had been too distracted to hear her the first time.

He padded toward their room and the adjoining bathroom, hoping she was okay. He didn't like to leave the coffee pot unwatched—something about pouring the second it finished made it that much better—but he'd put Kate and her needs over coffee any day.

He expected to find her lying on the floor as he'd left her, or perhaps sitting against the wall by now. He didn't expect her to be so alert, to meet him at the door in a completely different shirt, to then grab him and twist him around before he even got a glimpse of the bathroom.

She drags him out, pulls him over to the linen chest at the foot of their bed. "Can— um. Can you sit?" she asks, already pushing him down.

He agrees, still confused. She lets go of him, backs up, crosses her arms as she paces back and forth in front of his knees. He waits, hands clasped together, completely alert as he searches her face for a clue, a hint, anything. When she doesn't continue, he asks.

"Kate," he tries. "What's up?"

"I—just, hold on Rick, I…"

"Kate." He grabs her hands, untangling her arms from their positions. "You know you can tell me anything, right? If something's…wrong?"

Oh. He thinks something's wrong. He thinks she's hiding something, that she's mad at him, that it's his fault. She's seen this look too many times (mostly when those thoughts were true), knows what he's going through, has to give it to him now.

"Oh Cas…it's not you. It's not like that, nothing like that. It's just—you know how we thought that—that I was sick because of that chicken? But, uh, you had some of mine, and were fine?"

He nods, still holding her hands between his, searching her face for more information.

"Well…remember Kevin and Jenny's? Two, three weeks ago?"

"Three," he specifies. And while typically she'd be annoyed, she knows he's a writer, he wants accuracy and the whole story and all the facts, and so it comes naturally to him, he can't stop it if he tries. He has, before. It didn't turn out so well.

"And do—do you remember that…that night?"

"Of course, sweetie," he responds, standing as he reaches to brush a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Now he thinks he gets it, has an inkling of what she's about to tell him, and while he thinks he'll be ecstatic in a few moments when she confirms it, he forces himself to wait. He can do that. For her.

"What's up, did…" he pauses, not wanting to give away too much and ruin her moment. "Did something...happen?"

She bites her lip again. "Well, remember the conversation we—we had that night?"

He nods, one hand now partway between her ear and shoulder and the other midway down her arm.

"And remember how Lanie was so sick a couple months ago? We all thought she had food poisoning, or the flu, or,"

"Kate." He cuts her off, and she can see in his eyes that he knows where she's going, that she just needs to help him the rest of the way there. Which means spitting it out, and not continuing to trip over her words.

She shakes her head, returning to the present. "Well. Yesterday, while you were looking at the magazines to see how accurate their spoilers were for the book? I took the stuff, and checked out, but first I got a couple other things…"

She clears her throat. "Tests. Pregnancy…pregnancy tests."

He takes a breath in, and she can tell he's waiting for her to finish to react.

She goes faster at the end of the story, doesn't know how else she'll manage to get it out. "And I just—I just took them and they came out with two lines and not one and one means you're not pregnant and so I, uh, I guess I'm, um…."

"Pregnant?" she whispers, meeting his eyes for the first time since she mentioned the pharmacy.

He gasps, elated, and grabs her into a fierce hug, one hand on the back her head and the other further down her back, reaching around toward her ribs.

"Katie, oh, Kate!" he exclaims, if it's possible to exclaim in the hushed tone he was maintaining. He draws back, and she can see the beginnings of tears resting in his eyes. "I, we're, going to be, parents?"

She bites her lip a final time, meets his eyes again as she nods. She's about to speak, verbally answer, but he grabs her again, and this time her mouth is…busy. Very busy.

"And...what do you think?" he whispers, returning to reality.

She's biting her lip again, but this time she's fighting a smile. Suddenly her head is filled with visions of a baby in their lives—a baby who drifts off to sleep in Castle's arms, a baby who rests its head on her shoulder, a baby whose smell and toys take over the loft. And…it's exhilarating, intoxicating almost.

"I think I'm scared. But—but happy too? And, excited? And…I want to have a baby with you, Richard Castle." She whispers the last part; only inches away from his face as their hands find each others' and he leans down to kiss her again.

He picks her up, turns and carries her to the bed, leans on top of her to finish the kiss. She laughs at his excitement, but continues to explore his mouth.

"Have I mentioned that I'm in love with you yet today?" he asks, the final words before they're both rendered completely incapable of speech.

* * *

Thoughts?  
Also, are there any opinions about the category? I originally made it 'Family' and 'Angst', but I've been leaning more toward replacing one with 'Hurt/Comfort' or 'Romance'...


End file.
